Partnering with brands for retail

We deliberately decided when we first started thecompany not to rush to go into retail.And it's somewhat of a difficult thing to say no to large retailstores when they tell you, we want to put you on the shelf.But we decided to be very, sort of, slow and deliberateabout it because we wanted to be sure that we hadnailed the product collection and we had nailed the packaging, andwe had nailed the way to display and to communicate the product.Now we feel that we have done that.

We feel that we have a kit that comes withenough running material, enough exercises and projects in it, andenough of the packaging that communicates the breadth of theproduct, that we are now ready to go into it.[MUSIC].The reason we make kits is essentially to makeit easier for people to get started, so that youhave everything you need out of the box and you'reable to open it and get started making projects immediately.And you're inspired right away.And we have started to notice that there's specific directions that we can focus onto push these projects further and to makethem even more educational and even more fun.

So one of the really amazing partnerships that we've been working onfor the past year and a half is a partnership with NASA.And essentially we made a kit with NASAwhere they wrote all the learning material inthe kit and the purpose of that kit is to get kids excited about NASA science.What are the space exploration experiments that are happening?What is the Mars Rover?What is an ISS, how they work, how they communicate?And basically, really breaking down these muchlarger missions and much larger research projects, intosimpler projects for, for kids to make, to get them on one hand, excited aboutbeing NASA scientists and engineers, but onthe other hand, also understanding that we areat new frontiers in the universe, thatthey can look forward to in their lifetime.

So some of the partnerships that we're doing, suchas NASA and KORG and other partnerships that we'redoing, really allow us to reach out into onone hand, sort of main toy, educational and science stores,but on the other hand more niche marketssuch as, as schools or high end design stores.So we're able to create these partnership kits that have a littlebit more of a focus, rather than the, the open-ended exploration kits.And this focus allows us to go more in-depth and to provide more valuableproduct to new types of people that we wouldn't otherwise have been talking to.

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Released

5/2/2014

Construction sets like LEGOs break down the building blocks of the modern city in a way kids can understand and enjoy. But how do they explore the digital world? Ayah Bdeir applied her engineering background to these "problems of play" and came up with a new kind of toy: littleBits. littleBits make electronics, light, sound, and sensors as easy to play with as LEGOs and Lincoln Logs—combining learning, prototyping, and fun. In this Creative Insights interview, Ayah explains how she created littleBits, grew the toy into a full-fledged company, and learned to accept fame and funding on her own terms.